Bristol Community College faculty, staff and administrators are always looking for opportunities to build partnerships with the Fall River community, and importantly, with BMC Durfee High school. We look forward to expanding such partnerships with Durfee, should the very new prospect of an early college program develop between our institutions. That idea, while promising, has yet to be explored fully and will need to meet the approval of all our respective constituencies.

In the meantime, we already host dozens of thriving academic initiatives and programs. The Commonwealth Dual Enrollment Program annually provides resources, matched with college funds, to support several hundreds of qualified students in the region each year to complete rigorous coursework at Bristol Community College.

This spring alone, 356 students are being served. In this program, students meet both high school and college program requirements at the same time. Between 50 and 100 Durfee students participate each year, performing very well as measured by earned grade reports. They learn in college classrooms alongside college students.

BCC also runs several grant-funded contract courses each year for students at Durfee: college success seminars, developmental math courses and STEM science offerings. We partner on a successful program for students at risk of dropping out of Durfee or the alternative high school, called Gateway to College, which is modeled on early college principles and allows for college credits to count toward high school completion and college degree requirements simultaneously.

In all these partnerships, the instructors are qualified Bristol Community College full-time or adjunct faculty members. Other successful and long-term partnerships between BCC and Durfee include the federal Upward Bound program, going on its 25th year; the federal Educational Talent Search program; the College Access Challenge program; and more. These college preparation programs provide academic instruction, tutoring and field experiences for first-generation college-bound youth.

A robust early college program at BCC may be an idea whose time has come. Our long history of working together has built a strong foundation.

Sarah Morrell is dean of the Division of Access and Transition at Bristol Community College.